tive
to me, and I gathered from the few words that passed between us that
she had heard of me, and that she was grateful to me for championing her
oppressed race.

One day as I was sitting alone in the verandah, basking in the sun, and
debating whether I should rejoin Grant's army, I was surprised to see
this old creature hobbling towards me. After looking cautiously around
to see that we were alone, she fumbled in the front of her dress and
produced a small chamois leather bag which was hung round her neck by a
white cord.

"Massa," she said, bending down and croaking the words into my ear,
"me die soon. Me very old woman. Not stay long on Massa Murray's
plantation."

"You may live a long time yet, Martha," I answered. "You know I am a
doctor. If you feel ill let me know about it, and I will try to cure
you."

"No wish to live--wish to die. I'm gwine to join the heavenly host."
Here she relapsed into one of those half-heathenish rhapsodies in which
negroes indulge. "But, massa, me have one thing must leave behind me
when I go. No able to take it with me across the Jordan. That one thing
very precious, more precious and more holy than all thing else in the
world. Me, a poor old black woman, have this because my people, very
great people, 'spose they was back in the old country. But you cannot
understand this same as black folk could. My fader give it me, and his
fader give it him, but now who shall I give it to? Poor Martha hab no
child, no relation, nobody. All round I see black man very bad man.
Black woman very stupid woman. Nobody worthy of the stone. And so I say,
Here is Massa Jephson who write books and fight for coloured folk--he
must be good man, and he shall have it though he is white man, and
nebber can know what it mean or where it came from." Here the old woman
fumbled in the chamois leather bag and pulled out a flattish black
stone with a hole through the middle of it. "Here, take it," she said,
pressing it into my hand; "take it. No harm nebber come from anything
good. Keep it safe--nebber lose it!" and with a warning gesture the old
crone hobbled away in the same cautious way as she had come, looking
from side to side to see if we had been observed.

I was more amused than impressed by the old woman's earnestness, and was
only prevented from laughing during her oration by the fear of hurting
her feelings. When she was gone I took a good look at the stone which
she had given me. It was intensely bl